Will pursuing torture truth derail Obama’s agenda?

Exposing the Bush Administration’s use of torture in interrogating suspected terrorists is “a defining moment for America” writes Arianna Huffington. It’s not a political issue to be viewed through the left-right prism, she said. It’s a moral issue for all Americans to support.

Everyone in our public conversation, Huffington says, will have a role to play. The truth-digging will shine a light on an ugly chapter of America’s history and possibly bring the architects to justice. The Washington Post gives us the latest twist tonight: The military agency that devised the harsh interrogation techniques told The Pentagon in 2002 that torture would produce “unreliable information.”

There is a political question to consider, too: How will the ensuing political fallout affect the progress of Obama’s agenda? Is looking backward, as Obama describes it, worth it? “I do worry about this getting so politicized that we cannot function effectively,” Obama said.

Details will drip out for months. Coverage will intensify once scores of torture photos are released, as planned. Then cable TV news will be able to talk torture 24/7 — as long as there are images of naked/hooded/chained/waterboarded people to show. Every political office-holder pulling a federal pension will be on the clock to comment on each new detail.

Will there be enought political oxygen to discuss health care, energy and economic reform and the bailouts?

“If the country is focused on the Bush torture program all summer it is going to be a huge distraction,” said Berman, who teaches a course on Obama’s first 100 days. We talked to him for a 100-days story that will appear in Sunday’s Chronicle. “The people who don’t realize this, I think, are the people who supported Obama from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.”

So here’s a question for Obama supporters who want to pursue truth commissions or independent counsels or some other fact-finding/prosecutorial enterprise: Are you willing to risk derailing Obama’s agenda in Congress to do so?

MoveOn czar Justin Ruben told NPR today that pursuing the torture truth need not be an either/or proposition for the Obama Administration.

“This administration has shown they can walk and chew gum at the same time. We need to move forward with health care and clean energy and job creation,” Ruben said. “But at the same time, we also need to understand what happened with torture, and we can do both.”

The torture issue is scrambling the political calculus. Some GOPpers, like John McCain, don’t want to prosecute the torture architects for fear of looking like — as the GOP talking point goes — “a banana republic.” But, Andrew Sullivan reminds us what Ronald Reagan said about torture. And how about Fox News’ Shep Smith dropping an F-bomb on Fox’s online show The Strategy Room, as he pounded the table and shouted: “We are America! I don’t give a rat’s ass if it helps! We are America! We do not f—— torture!!!”: